a photo of homeless people in their camp

We the People: Life & Death in Portland's Homeless Shelters

by Patrick Carrico Author

Unlike the clinical treatments of the homeless populations in Portland that distill experiences down to numbers, Carrico's We the People gives readers the voices, names, and histories of persons who are never asked and frequently ignored on the rainy streets of Portland. This zine retells the blunt reality of working in a homeless shelter and the absence of clean endings, or endings at all, as wonderfully told characters enter the narrator's life only to disappear in and out of the broken and neglected system. The dark humor, constant empathy, and off-the-cuff honesty comes together to create a unique beauty that will force open the eyes of any reader.